Maria Rampendahl

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Maria Rampendahl (* around 1645 in Lemgo ; † August 1705 in Varel ) was the last woman accused of being a witch in the Lemgo witch trials .

biography

Birthplace of Maria Rampendahl

Early years

Maria Rampendahl was probably born in Lemgo in 1645. Her father was the baker and brewer Cordt Rampendahl, who belonged to a respected family of craftsmen and owned several houses and land. From 1677 he was councilor and treasurer in the Lemgo city council. Her mother was Catharina Bohne, the daughter of a wealthy barber and surgeon. Her brother's name was Jodocus Bohne and was elected mayor of Lemgo three times from 1672 to 1675. Maria lived with her family at today's Echternstraße 72. At school she learned to read, write and arithmetic, helped her brother in the barber's and in the evenings her parents served beer.

First accusations

After her paternal grandmother Salmeke from Lüdenhausen was executed as a witch in 1653 , eight-year-old Maria was first suspected of being a witchcraft, which was increased when the teacher Hermann Beschoren, who was friends with her family, was involved in a witch trial the following year and was burned at the stake . According to his confession, seventeen of his students had learned magic with him and were therefore sent to the boarding school in Detmold . However, it can be proven that Maria Rampendahl was not one of them.

When her brother Henrich died in January 1667, there were again mutual accusations and denunciations in the neighborhood, which resulted in further witch trials and executions. Apparently that was the reason that led to Maria Rampendahl's entry in the so-called Black Book .

On October 31, 1675 she married Hermann Hermessen or Harmsen, a journeyman barber from Varel in Oldenburg, and had four children by 1681, two more followed in 1682 and 1685. As was customary at that time, wound and dental treatment as well as nursing were part of it the duties of a barber, an activity in which Maria supported him. Another source of income was the sale of butter and milk at the weekly market. As early as 1679, the couple was able to move into their own house in a prime location on the market square, probably today's "Alte Ratswaage". The economic success as well as illnesses and deaths in the neighborhood led to further suspicions regarding witchcraft and magic art. However, her husband was not influenced by the rumors and stuck to her even in the most difficult times.

The last witch trial

Witch Mayor's House

In the meantime, the city of Lemgo had fallen into disrepute due to the numerous witch trials at the rulers of Lippe, the University of Rinteln , the Reich Chamber of Commerce and, last but not least, its own citizens. When Maria Blattgerste was executed on March 18, 1681, the city council decided to end the witch trials. Maria Blattgerste had previously incriminated Maria Rampendahl in the process, so that Hermann Cothmann, later known as the “witch mayor”, started an investigation and finally had Maria arrested. The self-confident 36-year-old woman was interrogated for the first time on March 17, 1681. She was not intimidated by the threat of torture . Even two days later, under torture, she did not make a confession and the verdict announced on April 15, 1681 was perpetual expulsion from the city and the country . This ends the series of witch trials in Lemgo, to which more than 200 women and men fell victim.

Maria Rampendahl benefited from the unconditional support she received from her family, but primarily from her husband. According to her own statement, that was her strongest motive for surviving the torture. The last process differed from the earlier procedures in that it was careless, because in the interrogatoria , the catalog of questions that had been prepared, no questions were asked about a devil's compensation or the names of the people involved. In addition, the one-time torture lacked the usual hardship.

Her husband, Hermann Hermessen, firmly believed in her innocence and immediately accepted her again after the verdict, even though he was banned from working in Lemgo as a result. Far be it from him to divorce his wife, and he followed her “out of the country” to Rinteln. From here they filed a lawsuit before the Reich Chamber of Commerce against the city of Lemgo and Count zur Lippe . The basis was an expert report by the University of Rinteln, which declared the evidence of arrest and torture to be insufficient. The proceedings ended on October 30, 1682 with a defeat for the Hermessen-Rampendahl couple and devoured a large part of their savings.

The consequences

Monument to Maria Rampendahl at the St. Nicolai Church in Lemgo

In 1683 Maria and her family moved to Varel in Oldenburg , her husband's hometown, where the economic success from Lemgo could not be repeated. Three of the daughters remained unmarried, which suggests that there was no more money for a dowry. Maria Rampendahl died in 1705 at the age of 60 and was buried in Varel on August 27th. Four of the six children did not marry and had no offspring. Catharina Margaretha Hermessen and Johann Anthon Harmsen married and each had a child, who in turn remained childless. So there are no descendants of Maria Rampendahl, neither in Varel nor in Lemgo.

Commemoration

Maria Rampendahl, the last woman accused of witchcraft in Lemgo, gained a certain degree of awareness , especially through the publications by Karl Meier in the previous century. In 1990 a working group was set up in Lemgo with the aim of erecting a memorial for the victims of the Lemgo witch persecution. The Lemgo artist Ursula Ertz designed this monument under the name "Stone of Contention", which was inaugurated on September 24, 1994 on the church square of St. Nicolaikirche . On the memorial stone are the words: Your name stands for all the innocently persecuted in this city, a warning and encouragement for all of us.

On June 18, 2012, the Lemgo City Council confirmed that the victims of the witch trials had been rehabilitated in Lemgo through the council resolution on the erection of the “Stone of Stumbling” (monument to Maria Rampendahl) of January 20, 1992 in Lemgo.

Since June 2014, 333 years after she was “forever banished from the city and the country” on April 15, 1681, a square now bears her name. It is a place in front of the city archive. The street called Rampendal in the immediate vicinity of the square has no relation to the Rampendahl family except for the similarity of the name and is considerably older.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Maria Rampendahl (accused in the witch trial)
  2. ^ Letter from the Lemgo City Council on the decision of June 18, 2012

literature

  • Karl Meier: Maria Rampendahl and the witch mayor , Detmold 1935
  • Karl Meier: Lemgo, a stronghold of the Witch Inquisition, in: Messages from the history of Lippe and regional studies, Volume 16/1938, page 5-62
  • Karl Meier: witches, executioners and tyrants. The last and bloodiest witch hunt in Lemgo 1665-1681 , 1st edition Lemgo 1949, 7th edition 1980
  • Gisela Wilbertz : Witch persecution in Lemgo in the mirror of archival tradition , in: Regina Pramann (ed.), Witch persecution and women's history. Contributions from municipal cultural work, Bielefeld 1993, pages 87-92
  • Gisela Wilbertz: witch hunt and biography. Person and family of the Lemgoerin Maria Rampendahl (1645-1705) , in: Gisela Wilbertz, Gerd Schwerhoff, Jürgen Scheffler (eds.), Witch hunt and regional history. The county of Lippe in comparison, (= studies on regional history; volume 4; contributions to the history of the city of Lemgo; volume 4), Bielefeld 1994, pages 145–181
  • Gisela Wilbertz: … an extremely cunning woman… Maria Rampendahl (1645–1705) and the end of the witch persecution in Lemgo , (= contributions to the history of the city of Lemgo; Volume 6), Bielefeld 2005
  • Gabriele Urhahn: I won't give way to an inch - Maria Rampendahl, an extraordinary Lemgo women's fate , in: Regina Pramann (ed.), Witches' persecution and women's history. Contributions from communal cultural work, Bielefeld 1993, pp. 33–48
  • Gabriele Urhahn: The Maria Rampendahl case. The last Lemgo witch trial , in: Gisela Wilbertz, Gerd Schwerhoff, Jürgen Scheffler (eds.), Witch persecution and regional history. The county of Lippe in comparison, (= studies on regional history; Volume 4; contributions to the history of the city of Lemgo; Volume 4), Bielefeld 1994, pages 137-144

Fiction

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rampendahl, Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION last person accused as a witch in Lemgo
DATE OF BIRTH around 1645
PLACE OF BIRTH Lemgo in Germany
DATE OF DEATH buried August 17, 1705
Place of death Varel